High-speed camera



Jan. 1 7

c. F. JENKINS 'IVI Q5 a nion Patented 1.... 22,1924.

UNITED I STATES PATENT OFFICE.

HIGH-SPEED cum.

Application filed April 14, 1921. Serial No. 461,427.

To all whom it may concern-.-

Be it known that I, CHARLES FRANCIS JENKINS, a citizen of the United States, and resident of Washington, in the District of Columbia, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in High-Speed, Cameras, of w ich the following is a specification, reference being had therein to the accom an ingdrawing. T 'e o ject of this inventionis to provide devices for producing motion pictures at a rate man times that until recently considered possib e, a rate of 2000 a second having been attained. This rate renders possible analysis of the movement of a body at such hi h speed that its positions could not hereto ore be recorded at desirably short intervals.

The camera of Patent Number 560,800 was provided with a, plurality of lenses successively passing an exposure aperture at nearly the rate of a constantly moving sensi'tized film passing the same aperture, but that camera could not compete commercially with a camera having a single lens and intermittently-movinlg film. Intermittent motion is satisfac'tor at 16 exposures per second, but obvious y is not available for a hundred times that speed. With multiple,

:0 uniform-speed lenses, the limit of speed depends only' upon sensitiveness of film, intensity of light, and rapidity of the lenses. In such high speed wor camera cost is of little importance in comparison with the value of as extremely short picture intervals. The

lenses should work with their greatest aperture and the ex osure opening should be wider than in or inary cameras so as to increase the exposure interval. Provision 40 must be made for preventin overlapping of lens images upon the film, ut devices heretofore proposed for. such ends have not proved successful at such extreme speeds as are being here considered. Extended experiments have resulted in successfully using a sort of maskfbetween the lenses and the ex posure opening.

In the accompanying diagrammatic drawso ig. l shows my devices, in front elevation.

Fig. 2 shows the same devices in side elevation, a portion of the camera box being shown.

BEISSUEB In these views, B represents a sensitized film constantly drawn down between plates 0, D, and past exposureopenings at F by a sprocket drum E, the height of the openmg being approximately equal to twice the vertical width of a picture. Infront of the plates C, D, is a rotary lens carrier G, ha-v-;

lens H arriving at the aperture and thence to the film, cover on the latter no more than a pictures height, while rays which would strike the film at higher or lower points are interce ted by the partitions K. The carrier sha t I bears a gear M which meshes with a pinion N upon the shaft 0 of the sprocket drum, so that the film and the lenses have, at the exposure point, precisely the same speed. The shafts may be rotated at any desired speed by suitable devices, not shown.

Obviously, the disk carrier, its lenses and its radial partitions form a unitary structure, and necessarily move together as if integral. Obviously, too, the gears M, N, being, as shown, of a well-known type without backlash, the film and lens-directed light beams move exactly together, as they must to ive satisfactory pictures at the extremely high speed mentioned.

What I claim is 1. The-combination with a camera casing having a light aperture and film feeding devices, of a disk carrier having fixed in its peripheral zone an annular series of duplicate, closely adjacent lenses in position to pass said aperture successively, radial partitions fixed to the carrier, separating each lens from its neighbors and extending substantially to the film and means for moving the lenses and film at identical speeds across the path of light from said aperture, said carrier, lenses, and partitions moving as if integral.

2. In a camera for producing hundreds of motion pictures per second, the combination with a plate having an exposure opening, of means'for continually feeding a sensitized film past said opening, a rigid member rofrom said member between each lens and the tating in front of said plate and havin next succeeding lens and reaching nearly fixed in its peripheral zone a plurality 0% to said plate. a lenses arranged to pass said opening at the In testimony whereof I hereunto aflix my 5 films rate while focusing substantially at signature. said opening, and approximately rigid, opaque partitions projecting respectively CHARLES FRANCIS JENKINS. 

